Natural Disasters vs CMMS

Fires. Flash floods. Earthquakes. Hurricanes. No matter where you live, natural disasters pose a real risk for your facility. And although nobody ever expects a disaster, everybody should be prepared for one.

As much as we’d like to claim otherwise, MicroMain software cannot prevent natural disasters from occurring (we’re probably still an update or two away from that functionality).

Let’s take a look at some the ways in which your our software can combat mother nature’s wrath.

Preventing Damage

When a warning for a wildfire or hurricane is issued, maintenance managers often have little time to act.

A CMMS solution can be used to issue emergency work order requests or an existing and appropriately-prioritized emergency inspection checklist. This means that you and your crew can spend more time on the maintenance floor making preparations and less time handling paperwork. And it can help ensure these tasks are delegated properly so that your technicians aren’t bumping into one another trying to perform the critical preparation task.

Furthermore, a computerized record of maintenance history will let you know exactly which assets need which sort of preparation. One example might be that some of your assets need be completely shut down in the case of potential flooding.

Of course, not all natural disasters come with fair warning. In these cases having a sound CMMS implementation helps you enact an effective preventive maintenance (PM) strategy so that when something does go wrong, your assets are in the best possible shape to withstand damage.

The key is to be proactive—to effectively manage that which you can control so that those things beyond your control (such as natural disasters) aren’t quite so disastrous. A CMMS can help get you there.

Recovering from Disasters

Let’s suppose a flash flood from a hurricane has pummeled your facility, leaving your assets and inventory in disarray.

Where do you begin? Inspection points can be used to help you assess your assets for damage. This is an important task, as certain damaged assets might pose a potential fire or electrical risk for your facility, endangering not only your bottom line but your staff’s safety.

Your CMMS will also help you scale up your work orders to an appropriate level post-catastrophe.

Radiant Group, LLC relied on MicroMain Maintenance when three hurricanes hit 58 of the company’s facilities.

“MicroMain helped us tremendously,” said director Don Hardy. “We tripled our usual work orders to over 60 a day, which we could easily generate with MicroMain. It was great because we could get the information into the system quickly and track it.”

Another important point: a CMMS can be used to demonstrate compliance with your asset manufacturer’s guidelines or government requirements. That way you can CMMS can actually help reduce the risk of liability claims.

Whatever form a disaster comes in, the right CMMS solution can mitigate the risk of damage for you facility. If you’ve relied on MicroMain software during a disaster, let us know in the comments below or by sending us an email!